Villa Rides (1968)

An action packed tale of the Mexican revolutionary war hero Pancho Villa (Yul Brynner) and his efforts to defeat the enemy and his villainous rival general Huerta (Herbert Lom). Aviator and gun runner Arnold (Robert Mitchum) is captured by Villa's forces which include the rather wonderfully sinister Fierro (Charles Bronson) who likes to shoot prisoners as a hobby.

Arnold is enrolled in Villa's army and uses his plane to help turn the tide against the enemy. However, Huerta's jealousy at Villa's success brings everything to a head. Villa is sent to Mexico City and Arnold back to the US to face theft charges...

An uneven film which includes a lot more fighting than less exciting things like characterisation, historical accuracy and plot line. Brynner's, Bronson's and Lom's characters are fairly one-dimensional but if the film is approached in the right way then it is a lot of fun and the battle scenes are spectacular. Also interesting to see Brynner play a character with hair.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)

One of the earliest films with underwater photography and one of the earliest adaptations of Jules Verne's story (though actually this includes elements from two of his stories including Mysterious Island). Captain Nemo (Allen Holubar) and his submarine Nautilus travels the seas in search of Denver (William Welsh) whose unwelcome advances compelled a princess to take her own life...

Professor Aronnax (Dan Hanlon) and his daughter (Edna Pendleton) are captured by Nemo after the Nautilus sinks their ship. At first they are prisoners of Nemo then they join him on his hunt under and above the waves including to a mysterious island where a wild girl lives (Jane Gail)...

An astonishing film with a lot of underwater footage, maybe a little too much for the sake of the pace of the film at times but this was a genuine first in film making so should be expected. The odd bit of silent movie style overacting should be expected as well.

Money Movers (1978)

An incredibly violent and also incredibly Australian film, and an amazing thrill ride all the way through. A security company suffers a number of attacks including a raid on an armoured car. Is there an inside man? Well in fact there is, Eric Jackson (Terence Donovan) is planning the big one. To roll into the depot with a fake armoured car and steal AU$ twenty million!

Eric has problems though, local hood Jack Henderson (Charles Tingwell) finds out about the planned heist and muscles in. There is also the rather strange new security guard Leo (Tony Bonner) who is almost overtly suspect, and old sweat Dick (Ed Devereaux) who is a crack shot and quick with his fists...

This is a terrific film, a string of brawls and beatings wrapped around a number of intertwining subplots. The film is full of blokey humour, such as the guy who gets locked in a room with a time lock, though he doesn't really worry too much about it as he is sharing the room with a couple of boxes of beer! Oh yes, look out for the toe cutting scene...

The Dude Ranger (1934)

A very familiar B-movie Western story wise but a good example of the type. Ernest (George O'Brien) arrives from out East to take up his inheritance of a cattle ranch. However, when he gets there he finds the ranch has thousands of livestock missing and as he has been mistaken as just another cowhand he decides to play along to try and find who is behind the cow theft. He suspects the boss Sam (Henry Hall) could be behind it, though when he gets the hots for Sam's daughter Anne (Irene Hervey) things get complicated...

Naturally it is really someone else who is behind the crime (LeRoy Mason) and everything gets sorted out just in time for Ernest and Anne to kiss. The story may lack originality but the film is well made with an emphasis on plot rather than badly choreographed gunfights who so often ruin films of this type. The film does maybe lack a bit of action though having said that.

Sid Saylor provides light relief as a singing sidekick to Ernest.

The Cosmonaut Cover-Up (1999)

A documentary which claims that Yuri Gagarin was not the first man in space, in fact it was test pilot Vladimir Ilyushin. However, his flight into space went wrong and he crash landed in China and was badly injured. 

This is a great story though little actual evidence is provided. Rather disappointingly Ilyushin himself declined to speak on camera about it despite the film makers claiming he was going to. So, all we really have is a lot of hearsay, obscure old news snippets and unsubstantiated claims. 

However, despite that this documentary is well worth watching due to the Soviet era footage of space development and training much of it is completely compelling and fascinating.